This Scepter'd Isle (69 page)

If so, she thought, I was right. To steal Elizabeth would certainly bring Vidal hunting her . . . and me. Aurilia would like to be rid of me—I have too much power. But then why does she want Elizabeth here? Because Elizabeth is a child and it will be many years before her potential is reached? And in those years what might happen to her? One of Rhoslyn's hands twitched nervously, but further thoughts were cut off by Vidal, who rose to his feet.

"Yes," he said, "we will not fail this time, but the act will need some foresight. I will send out several spy demons to count the household and make picture memories of those who guard the doors and such."

"Be sure your goblins and bogans do not go near the child," Aurilia warned. "She can see them or sense them . . . I do not know which, but she screams whenever they are anywhere near her. If she does that, it will surely be reported to FitzRoy—once he was actually in the room when it happened and he turned Oberon's mark on the invader, so that it had to flee and lost its memory too. If FitzRoy is warned he will surely set a watch."

Vidal Dhu nodded, and held out a hand to help her from her chair. "For now I only want a report of who watches and when. Over the next two weeks, while Rhoslyn makes ready the changeling, I will remake the face of one of our bound mortals to replace the guard on a side or back door so we will have unchallenged entry. I will also need a replacement for one of the menservants who carries meals and messages and such to the child's apartment."

"You must not kill the mortals you replace." Aurilia offered another warning. "We can put them in Gateways, from where it will be easy enough to retrieve them, and I will give them false memories of a quiet night with no alarms."

"Also," Pasgen offered, "it will be better if the disguised guard is not in place too long. Otherwise he might betray himself. Do we really need another? What if Elizabeth feels the difference in the servant and recoils from him?"

Vidal Dhu had offered his arm to Aurilia and started to turn away, but he looked back over his shoulder, his expression very cold. "That servant is necessary. We need him to take the child and remove the iron cross."

"The iron cross," Rhoslyn said hastily, wishing to remove Vidal Dhu's attention from Pasgen. "We cannot put the cross on my changeling. That would kill it at once, perhaps even dissolve it. But if the changeling is not wearing the cross, the nurse will notice. Elizabeth never goes without it."

"I will make one of blackened silver," Pasgen said. He still did not like the idea of a bespelled mortal coming so near Elizabeth, who was dangerously sensitive, but he also wished he had not awakened more suspicion in Vidal Dhu. "Has anyone seen it close enough to tell me what it looks like?"

"I've felt it—" Rhoslyn shuddered "—but never seen it."

"Never mind." Pasgen waved the problem away. "I will entrap one of the women servants who attends the child's bath. She will know and I can take the description from her mind."

Vidal, scowling, started to take a step, but Aurilia held him back. "Our party, even with free entry to the house, should not be too large. I know you are very strong in magic, my lord, but it would be a great waste of power to try to put the outside servants to sleep as well as the whole household within, and if we were many, one or more of the outside servants might be awake and notice too much coming and going."

Vidal Dhu shrugged. "I will have reports from my spies about who is likely to be where, but there need not be many of us. As you say, the household will be asleep. We need the mortal to carry the child and a Sidhe to carry the changeling. You, me, Pasgen, Rhoslyn, perhaps two more Sidhe as guards—just in case they are more sly than we expect and have some magical protection in the child's nursery."

Pasgen nodded slowly and bowed as Vidal and Aurilia left the room. He felt that this foray would be successful. He had tried stealth and trickery and both had failed. Likely sheer force would be successful. He hated that the success would be Vidal Dhu's, but they had to remove all possibility of the red-haired child coming to the throne, and it was only good sense to get her young enough to train up in their ways.

FitzRoy had retreated from the scaffold as soon as the executioner's sword fell. He had wanted to slip away sooner; he had not wanted to see Anne die, but he had not been able to move, not even to close his eyes. When her head fell, blood gushing from the truncated neck, however, he wrenched himself backward, almost falling down the steps. Ladbroke, who had taken bold advantage of being servant to the first duke in the realm, had pushed his way to the very front and now held FitzRoy's horse and his own at the base of the steps.

He caught his blind and shaking master, and gave him a leg up into the saddle. Seeing FitzRoy seated and trusting his horsemanship, even disordered as he was, Ladbroke slapped the horse on the rump and flung himself into his own saddle. Judicious use of his crop and his heels permitted him to come around in front of FitzRoy's horse, which was being given no direction. The crowd, mostly still staring at the scaffold, was forced by Ladbroke to make way for the horses, a few crying imprecations or growling curses.

FitzRoy was stonily unaware of anything beyond the turmoil in his guts, fed and renewed by the horror in his mind. When they reached Baynard's castle, he gave up the battle and was violently sick—although he had eaten nothing that morning. He brought up the wine he had drunk, but even long after he was empty he could not stop retching until Dunstan hurried to him and forced a small cup upon him.

"Drink," he ordered so forcefully that FitzRoy tried.

Fire seared his mouth, his throat, and his belly. He gasped, eyes bulging, hardly able to breathe.

"Drink," Dunstan insisted again.

Still gasping, FitzRoy emptied the cup. The conflagration in his insides was renewed, but the sickness was gone. From his belly, but not from his mind. Tears ran down his face and he sobbed uncontrollably. He had not really liked Anne much—she was too self-centered, too selfish—but she had been so vital, so alive, one could not be dull in her presence. And now she was gone—never to laugh again, never again to utter another pointed, witty remark—just gone. He closed his eyes and shuddered.

"That's enough, Your Grace," Dunstan said. "We have to be going. Lord Denno's alone at Hatfield. He's a good man, but there's not enough of him to really protect the princess."

"Lady Elizabeth," FitzRoy said. "We must remember to call her Lady Elizabeth. It would be unwise to be overheard denying the king's declaration of her illegitimacy." Tears ran down his face again and he dashed them away angrily. "Yes, we must go at once. I swore to her mother—" his voice broke and he cleared his throat "—I swore I would care for and protect Elizabeth as long as we both lived."

He turned toward his horse as his four guardsmen emerged from the stables. Tolliver followed leading several packhorses.

"Packhorses?" FitzRoy said. "But—"

"I told the steward, Your Grace, that we were going to visit Lord Denno in his house near Windsor for which, presumably, you would need a full wardrobe. Fortunately Sir Edward is still . . . at the Tower."

"Windsor?" FitzRoy repeated stupidly. "Does Denno have a house near Windsor?"

"I doubt it," Dunstan said, coming closer on the pretext of adjusting an article of FitzRoy's clothing. He lowered his voice to a murmur that would not carry beyond FitzRoy's ear. "But you did tell me, Your Grace, that you did not wish it widely known that you intended to be with the pr—with Lady Elizabeth for a time."

The valet stepped back, plucking an imaginary thread from FitzRoy's doublet, and FitzRoy said, "Yes, of course, Dunstan, thank you. I—I am not quite myself."

"It is to your credit, Your Grace." Dunstan's words seemed to squeeze unwillingly through tight lips.

It was a long, silent ride to the merchant's house in the village of Hatfield that FitzRoy had taken over. Now and then he wept again, not so much now for Anne as for his image of his father. It could not be the same between them. FitzRoy knew the charges against Anne were false; that the evidence was ridiculous, particularly that against her brother George. Either his father had deceived himself or he, too, knew Anne was innocent. No, he could never feel the same.

Arrival at the merchant's house he had bought in the village of Hatfield provided a distraction. He looked at the comfortable brick building with relief, remembering how Denno had approached the man secretly and had offered him a small fortune if he would leave quietly and go to London. There, he promised he would be set up in business anew, which Denno's man of business arranged.

Meanwhile a cousin of Denno's man of business took over the merchant's work, claiming to be the merchant's cousin. The village accepted him. They had all known that the merchant was very successful and it was no surprise to them that he had moved on to a larger town and greater things.

For FitzRoy there were many benefits to living in the house of a busy merchant. No one was surprised to see men-at-arms lounging around—a merchant had to protect his goods—or to see well-dressed people coming and going, even at odd hours. There was a private lane from the edge of the village to the large yard behind the merchant's house. It had been built to keep the merchant's wagons from damaging the road to the palace; now it served to let FitzRoy come and go in secret. There were storage buildings behind the house and a good-sized stable, large enough to take wagons . . . large enough to house a whole troop of soldiers, if they ever became necessary.

Denno was waiting at the back door; when it closed, he folded FitzRoy into his arms as if the young man was a child again. "Sorry," he whispered. "I am so sorry. We were not vigilant enough. If we had removed the dog . . ."

FitzRoy rested quietly in Denoriel's arms for a while, then freed himself and sighed. "It did not matter, Denno. If she could not bear the king a living son, sooner or later it would have come to this. The king would not again have a living wife while he married anew." Tears filled FitzRoy's eyes again for the loss of a father he had loved, and he angrily wiped them away with the heel of his hand. "No, I will not think about it. I must live, at least for a few years more, with my father, until I can induce him to send me abroad. What is more important now is Elizabeth. In how much danger is she? She will never be queen now."

"Do not be so sure of that," Denoriel replied as they walked into the house from the back, passing the kitchen and a small dining parlor before they entered the merchant's own withdrawing room. "Aleneil Saw many futures and in only one of them did the queen die. There are fewer futures now, all horrible except one—one in which a red-haired queen sits on the throne of England."

"But how could she possibly come to the throne?" FitzRoy stood before the fire, nervously clasping and unclasping his hands.

Denoriel sat down in a high-backed chair and shook his head. "Beyond much sorrow and suffering, hers and that of the people, but it is not as queen that the Unseleighe want her. Indeed, they would delight in every future
except
that one. They want her to grow up desiring mortal fear and pain and to tell them how to use the increased power that fear and pain would provide them to dominate many other domains—perhaps even Elfhame Logres and Elfhame Avalon."

The more Denno said, the more Harry's gut knotted; bad enough to discover what a monster his father could be, but to think of that dear, naughty babe stolen and educated to be a thousand times worse—FitzRoy shook his head violently in denial.
"No!"
he shouted, so that Denoriel started.

"No," he said more quietly. "I will not let that happen."

Denoriel pulled on his lower lip. "If she rules this realm, she will weave so skillfully among the other nations that England will be very great. If she uses that skill for the purposes of the Unseleighe . . ."

"They must not have her. But how can I protect her?" he asked, desperately, feeling his head begin to ache. "And for how long?"

"To the first, I agree. I would not like Vidal Dhu for a master. How to protect her?" Denoriel uttered a mirthless chuckle. "Carefully. And for how long? Ah, there is the worst problem of all. Perhaps for years, until she is seated on the throne."

He groaned, seeing his own freedom slipping away. "Then I would not be able to leave England. I promised Anne I would protect Elizabeth and care for her as long as I lived." But better that than the alternative—

"Time changes all things, even Seeings," Denoriel reminded him. "Actually the worst danger is now, while she is little more than an infant, while Vidal and Aurilia believe they can warp her heart and mind to accept the misery of mortals as a good. And again, I think they will strike very, very soon, while her household is in turmoil and a different person does a different thing every day. This is when it is least likely that a changeling will be noticed—"

"But surely Blanche would know," FitzRoy interrupted.

Denoriel put a finger across his lips. "Not so much freedom with her name."

He glanced over his shoulder at the door behind him. "Can there be a watcher?"

Denno nodded his head. "Not in this house, but somewhere not far . . . perhaps at the palace . . . something is listening, and I do not know how long its ears are."

FitzRoy closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. "I will go to the palace now."

"Not tonight." Denoriel shook his head. "Everyone is too wakeful, too frightened, too full of grief that they cannot show. They dare not talk of what happened this day but they cannot think of anything else. Unfortunately it is likely that Vidal knew when the queen would die so they could already have prepared a changeling; however, it is very hard to keep alive the constructs made in the likeness of mortal flesh. Thus, they may have begun that work only now, when the fact of Elizabeth's disgrace and Anne's death is certain. At least tonight we will be able to sleep in peace."

The next day FitzRoy went to the palace and provided a diversion for Elizabeth, who was well aware that
something
was very wrong but did not know what and was, as a result, fretful. Two days later, Lady Bryan rode to London to try to discover what provision was being made for the dead queen's daughter. FitzRoy went to sleep in a side chamber near Elizabeth's apartment with an air spirit nestled by his side. But he did not need it; nothing happened.